


Breaking Down Tinola

by ang_gray_smol



Category: Noli Me Tangere & Related Works - José Rizal
Genre: Angst, Food Metaphors, day 1: food, elibarra if you squint, elibarra week 2015, titles are deceiving
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-22
Updated: 2016-10-22
Packaged: 2018-08-24 00:06:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,199
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8348200
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ang_gray_smol/pseuds/ang_gray_smol
Summary: Crisostomo thinks about his favourite food.





	

**Author's Note:**

> [tumblr](http://almightytrashcan.tumblr.com/post/135815771446/breaking-down-tinola)

Breaking down the components of  _tinola_ often came into Crisostomo’s mind. It was an odd act, and, according to a roommate, was probably caused by some traumatic experience a long time ago, but he does it. 

Like now.

He does it while he sits in a wooden chair by the window, snow gently falling down outside his suite in a European country on Christmas Eve.

He breaks down the components of  _tinola_  one by one.

The bland but spicy soup he disliked the most, because it didn’t seem to make any sense to him at all. He always thought that  _tinola_  should have flavour in everything, from the meat all the way to the water that sloshed around in the pot called soup.

He might as well be too optimistic, if optimism wasn’t such a sin of high degree to some friars. 

Being away from his motherland and staying in a more liberal foreign place had shaped his mind and his ideals, but that wasn’t such a bad thing in all actuality. He only thought he could put these ideals of his to action once he comes back from studying.

He  _thought_.

He always thought that change was possible through one man. Crisostomo wanted to be that man, planned to be that man, which was why he was so optimistic. He thought he held the fate of the nation in the palms of his hands, and that he can implement change quickly and easily, like how it was in Europe.

Crisostomo always had his head high up in heaven, because his ideals were so great and his optimism was so strong, that Elias had to struggle to bring him down and show him what really is.

He pauses at the name.

Elias was different from all the other people he had known. Sure, he was simply a boatman and an  _indio_  at that, but there was something about this scarred boatman that seemed to fascinate him.

In comparison to him, a sheltered and educated  _ilustrado_  whose optimism was off the charts, Elias had experienced so much suffering at the hands of men that it seemed impossible for him to hope and believe in such petty things. 

He believed in change even if those never really came to him in his short life, and he himself believed that Crisostomo can usher in that change, even if that meant killing people for Crisostomo’s sake.

Maybe that was why he was so optimistic. Crisostomo had one man at his back, one man who stopped believing in others but him, always stirring up the fire of change in him, because this one man’s worth to him was equivalent to that of the whole world, and when the whole world urges you to do something, you do it.

He sighs deeply at his mistake: learning the right ideas at the wrong time.

Crisostomo was often disturbed by the presence of vegetables in his favorite dish. The Philippines is a tropical country, and most of the denizens of this Spanish colony worked as farmers and labourers. This would mean they would constantly be working out in the rice fields, and sweating their asses off until midday. They didn’t need vegetables to energize them because the only thing vegetables do to a human being is clean out the dirt from the organs and get excreted.

Crisostomo has lost so much too, in just a short amount of time.

He lost his family, a given since the dawn of time.

He lost his name.

He lost his reputation.

He lost the love of his life, the shining light amidst the gloom of loneliness and homesickness while studying in Europe.

He lost so much more than what a regular human being deserves to lose, all because he wanted change for his country.

Crisostomo wants to say it’s unfair, and it’s unjust, but the world itself is unfair and unjust to everyone, and the  _ilustrado_  was no exception to its extensive grasp.

Yet, his family was dead. His name was nearly connected to infamy even in the early days, and Maria Clara was a nun now. None of those losses should really matter now, right? They have all gone behind him, and he was now in Europe again, the place where he really felt most at home.

But it did not really feel like a home, especially when he can’t share it with another loss of his.

Crisostomo couldn’t possibly believe he’s sad all because of a simple name.

He gave Elias the chance. 

He dropped the optimism act, and he wanted to be selfish for once. He himself wanted to be happy, despite all the crimes attributed to him and all the trouble he had gone through. Crisostomo didn’t want to regain any of his pathetic losses anymore. He just wanted to leave them all behind and start anew, a life in which he did not have to fight for liberation and education.

A life which he could spend with Elias in Europe, the land of liberation and education.

But the world was still unfair and unjust.

_He just had to lose Elias too._

The one person to watch him and catch his fall.

By now, he was too tired to keep thinking, but there was still one last component of  _tinola_  that hasn’t tossed and turned around in his mind.

The meat was probably the most important component of  _tinola_. It holds the most flavour out of everything in the entire dish. It is the thing that cooks spend their last few coins of just to make the dish complete.

Crisostomo himself also needs something so he could finally be complete.

At first, it was recognition. He was about to introduce magnificent change by promoting liberal ideals and building a school so the  _indios_  would finally start learning something, and  _god damn it_ , isn’t that something worth vying for gratitude and appreciation? 

Of course it was.

Then, it became peace. Being stripped of a lover and privileges were already enough for him. Why add to his list of troubles an uprising in his name and treachery from said lover? Even then, there would be him getting holed up in gaol, and losing Elias.

Crisostomo would often wonder why did all these happen to him?

 _He just wanted change_.

Then, it became revenge. Crisostomo was no longer that stupid, optimistic  _ilustrado_  oblivious to the actual suffering of  _indios_ , since he himself had felt the combined wrath of the Church and the Government. It was revenge that pushed him to return to Europe and plan a revolution once he returns from his self-proclaimed exile.

But, when Crisostomo thinks that’s all that he really needs, he is lying to himself.

He needs Elias too.

His last hope.

His hope that jumped into the cold dark water just so he can escape unscathed and evade the  _guardiya civil_.

His hope that diverted the  _guardiya civil_  for him believing he can make the change that they always have heated debates about over cups of tea.

His hope that died and left him without anything to hold on to, to cling onto in his newfound hopelessness. 

Crisostomo smiles sadly to himself.

 _Happy eating_.

**Author's Note:**

> discuss other food metaphors at almightytrashcan.tumblr.com


End file.
